Virginia Beach City Council will decide Tuesday night if a developer can build a new neighborhood off Princess Anne Road near the intersection of Fenwick Way. The road is known to flood, and is sometimes impassable, as seen in this October 2016 photo.

Virginia Beach leaders won’t allow 32 homes in a flood-prone part of the city

Virginia Beach City Council will decide Tuesday night if a developer can build a new neighborhood off Princess Anne Road near the intersection of Fenwick Way. The road is known to flood, and is sometimes impassable, as seen in this October 2016 photo.

VIRGINIA BEACH

City leaders on Tuesday denied a developer’s request to build 32 new homes on flood-prone land near the Municipal Center.

Allowing the project would be repeating past mistakes, said Councilwoman Barbara Henley, and also run the risk of burdening taxpayers with the cost of future drainage projects.

The development company, Argos, wanted to build The Reserve at Princess Anne on part of 50 acres of empty land off Princess Anne Road near Fenwick Way. The rest would have been preserved because it was wetlands and too close to West Neck Creek. The project included building a new road into the neighborhood, which would have been in a floodplain, according to documents filed with the city.

That section of Princess Anne Road can become impassable during heavy rains.

“It’s been happening for decades that I remember,” Henley said at the council meeting. “It’s very hard for me to forget what I’ve seen and pretend it may not flood if it develops.”

Residents who spoke in opposition of the project told the city council that the development would become the next Ashville Park – an upscale neighborhood in the southern part of the city with a drainage system that’s almost completely dysfunctional. Now the city must find millions of dollars to fix it.

“The main thing is that we learn from our mistakes of the past,” Henley said. “I think one of the things we are learning is that we did not properly require some of our past developments to go through the rigors of determining stormwater conditions before a rezoning.”

Representatives for Argos said the city was evaluating the company on requirements it shouldn’t have to meet because new rules haven’t been formally adopted.

“It’s up to you to set the standards,” said Anne Crenshaw, a lawyer for the Argos company. “We can only rely on what you tell us, and that we did. It’s patently unfair to put the onus of council’s failure to act over the past several years on my client.”

Some city leaders saw the project as a chance to take a hard line on flooding. The Planning Commission didn’t approve the project, despite the planning staff’s recommendation.

Argos submitted an early drainage study that city engineers said had the “potential to successfully comply with the stormwater requirements of this site,” according to a staff report.

It was a responsible plan, said Brad Martin, an engineer who worked on the project for Argos and is also running for council. Concerns with the project are ultimately the city’s responsibility, he said during the council meeting.

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Mechelle Hankerson is a Virginia Beach native who covers the southern part of the city, public works and housing. She graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University and worked in Raleigh, N.C. before coming home to The Pilot.

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mechelle.hankerson@pilotonline.com

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